Making Money on CafePress

How to make money designing and selling shirts online

By Kimberly Dawn Wells, Internet Entrepreneur, Kimberly Dawn Wells

Designing and selling shirts or other branded merchandise used to involve extensive amounts of time, financing, and resources. An online service has now made it possible to get started for free, with little knowledge or skills required. CafePress is a print-on-demand service for clothing and gifts. Much like POD book printing, you design the images that you want to appear on the products, and CafePress prints and ships each item as it is ordered. There is no inventory for you to maintain or financial transactions for you to manage. You get paid a monthly commission based on what you sell.There are 3 main steps to preparing products to sell:

Design your image according to the provided resolution and size specifications.
Upload the image to your media basket using the browser based tool provided.
Choose from over 70 products to have your design appear on.

These are the five most valuable tips for using CafePress to make money:

Create high-resolution images with a graphic editing program

Properly designed images appeal to shoppers and reduce the likelihood of returned merchandise. They also fit the shape of your product and look more professional.
Try: GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) is a free image editing software that runs on multiple operating systems with multiple language options. Paint Shop Pro has been the designer’s program of choice for several years and you can find free technique tutorials and design accessories online. Photoshop and Corel Draw are also very popular programs for designers.

Invest in your business by upgrading to a premium shop

Basic shops are free and allow you to offer only one of each product. Premium stores allow unlimited product availability, shop customization and organization, and valuable marketing tools.
Try: Try a basic shop for a few months to earn some CafeCash, which can be used towards the monthly fees for a premium shop.

Use effective titles and descriptions for your products

Search engines use the keywords found in your product titles and descriptions to rank and list your shop's pages.
Try: CafePress offers a SEO Tutorial through their online Learning Center and hosts regular chats on marketing techniques.

Choose a theme for your shop and organize it accordingly

CafePress shops have a habit of getting out of hand as shopkeepers design images unrelated to their main theme.
Try: Use custom shop templates and product sections to categorize your designs and plan your shop in advance. Consider creating a separate shop for each niche.

Use the affiliate program to make even more money

You can earn 20% on any merchandise you sell as an affiliate.
Try: Get started at the CafePress Affiliate center and use Topic Ads on your websites, blogs, and shops to increase your revenue.

Keep your shop clean and simple. Don't overload your visitors with mixed marketing messages.
Use premium pricing. Shopkeepers agree that premium priced merchandise sells better.
Use Google Base to make your products available through Froogle.com, Google’s popular shopping search engine.
Promote your shop using your blog, other websites, and Squidoo lenses, and through articles and press releases.
Tag your images carefully. Appropriate tags result in better search rankings.